Michael Berkowitz: Community is the secret of urban resilience . The author is CEO of the Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities initiative, an emerging movement in municipal planning and development: the quest to make urban communities far more resilient to social, economic and physical shocks.

Some quotes from the article:

With so many cities clamoring to participate, what will convince the 100 Resilient Cities to pick one over another? Answer: the camaraderie of its citizens, the fabric of its churches and religious organization, even the footprint of the transportation network and how it defines where neighborhoods end and begin.

“We see a key differentiator is community cohesion,” Berkowitz noted. “In other words, how much do neighbors check on neighbors? How tight-knit are communities that can come together during stresses or after shocks like earthquakes, big floods or hurricanes? Communities that are cohesive in that way always rebound better or are more resilient.”